


Buffy Season 1

by Rod



Series: Rod of Jesse [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rod/pseuds/Rod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How would life on the Hellmouth have changed if Jesse had survived the Harvest instead of Xander?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome to the Hellmouth

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** still not mine.
> 
> Much of the dialogue comes directly from the episode "Welcome to the Hellmouth", so I can't even claim that.

"See, this is where I'm having a problem here. We're talking about vampires. Like Dracula, only uglier."

Jesse was agitated. He was standing around in the library, which was a bad start in and of itself. It usually meant that a major Act of Willow had occurred and Jesse was being forced to learn for himself. This time he, Willow, the new girl Buffy and the creepy librarian guy had a whole different disaster on their hands.

It had all started the previous night. Jesse, Xander, and Willow had been at the Bronze, trying to do what all horny teenagers do: get a date. Amazingly, after Cordelia had somehow resisted his charms yet again, Jesse had scored. Darla had been beautiful, smart and interested in him. She seemed to have this thing about graveyards being romantic, and her voice promised great things if Jesse went with her. As long as it involved making out, Jesse had no problem in humouring her.

Things had become a little hazy after she gave him a big hickey, the sort that left him bleeding. Jesse vaguely remembered Darla dragging him to a crypt where Willow was being stalked by another guy, then Buffy turned up and committed all kinds of mayhem while Xander dragged them out of the crypt. They hadn't even got out of the cemetery before more vampires attacked them, leaving Jesse too dazed to work out which way was up never mind what was going on. By the time Buffy rescued them again, Xander had been dragged away.

"Wasn't that what we saw last night?" asked Willow.

"Oh no," Buffy said, holding an ice pack to her forearm, "those weren't vampires, just guys in thorough need of a facial. Or maybe they had rabies, it could have been rabies. That guy turning to dust? Just a trick of the light." She gave Jesse a sad look. "That's exactly what I said the first time I saw a vampire. Well, after I was done screaming."

Jesse grimaced. He might have perfected the art of denial when it came to girls and school work, but even he had his limits. On another occasion he might have been able to persuade himself that he hadn't gotten up close and personal with people with fangs and deformed faces. This time his best bud was missing and his other best friend was in shock, and denying what he'd seen could cost him both of them.

"I think I need to sit down," Willow said in a small voice.

"You are sitting down," Buffy pointed out.

"Oh, good for me."

Jesse hunkered down in front of his childhood friend. "It's OK, Wills," he said gently. "We'll find him. It'll be OK." 

Jesse, Willow and Xander had been friends since kindergarten. Jesse could still remember the look on his parents' faces when he told them they'd been playing with Willow's Barbie doll. He'd been allowed to take GI Joe with him the next day. Since then, they'd done everything together, and Jesse felt like he knew Xander and Willow as well as he'd ever know anyone.

He knew that Willow had a crush on Xander, for example. It showed in the way she always sat near him even if it meant being away from Jesse, how she gave all her attention to what he said, how he was the one she nagged about not turning in homework. It hurt Jesse a little, watching her grow away from him. It was all right because she was growing towards the oblivious Xander, but it still hurt.

This had to be hard on Willow, losing Xander so suddenly. She was probably beating herself up right now, Jesse thought, telling herself that if only she'd clued Xander in he'd be here right now. It hurt Jesse even more that she would think like that, but he didn't know how to stop her. "It'll be OK," he repeated helplessly.

Mr Giles sniffed. "Much as I hate to contradict you," the librarian said stuffily, "the creatures who took your friend are pure evil. We should prepare for the worst."

Willow burst into tears. Jesse gathered her into his arms and glared at the librarian. The truth — that Xander was probably already dead — was the last thing that Willow needed to hear right then. "Way to be caring and sensitive," he snarled as he rocked his sobbing burden.

"Welcome to reality," Giles fired back, imperturbable.

Unaccountably failing to spontaneously combust under Jesse's continued glare, Giles launched into a recitation of the Time-Life History of Demons, Vampires, and Things That Go Munch In The Night. Jesse listened with one ear, concentrating on soothing Willow. He owed it to both her and Xander to make sure she got through this.

Finally, after repeated sarcasm from Buffy, Giles boiled it all down to three simple sentences. "The Slayer hunts vampires. Buffy is a Slayer. Don't tell anyone. There, I think that's all the vampire information you need."

"Except for one thing," Jesse said. "How do you kill them?"

"You don't," Buffy said firmly. "I do."

"Yeah, but Xander is—"

"Xander is my responsibility, I let him get taken."

Jesse couldn't exactly contradict her, having been semi-conscious at the time, so he settled for glowering at her instead.

"If you hadn't shown up," Willow pointed out, "we would have been taken too. Does anybody mind if I pass out?" she asked weakly.

"Breathe," supplied Buffy helpfully.

"Breathe," Willow echoed faintly.

"I mind," Jesse said softly. "Stay with us, Wills." His friend of many years gave him a shaky smile as he squeezed her hand. She'd be OK. She had to be OK. Jesse didn't know what he'd do without both of his best friends.

Buffy stepped over to Giles, abruptly more business-like as if she'd never had her recent near-undeath experience. "This big guy, Luke, he talked about an offering to the Master. Now I don't know what or who, but if they weren't just feeding then Xander may still be alive. I'm gonna find him."

"Alive?" Willow asked in a small voice.

"Yeah, alive," Jesse told her, trying to keep his own doubts hidden. "We'll find him, Wills."

After Willow's suggestion of calling the police was vetoed, with even Jesse agreeing that sending men with guns after men with fangs was not of the good, Giles returned to their basic problem. "You have no idea where they took Xander?" "I looked around," Buffy replied, "but as soon as they got clear of the graveyard they could have just 'voom'."

"They can fly?" Jesse asked.

"They can drive."

"I don't remember hearing a car," Willow said.

"Let's take an enormous intuitive leap, shall we," Giles said in his frustratingly superior manner, "and say they went underground."

"There's an electrical tunnel that runs under the whole town," Jesse offered.

"If we had a map of the tunnel system, it might indicate a meeting place," Giles said wearily. "I suppose we could go to the Building Commission."

"We so don't have time," Buffy protested.

"Uh, guys," Willow said quietly. "There may be another way."

Once she was seated in front of the computer, Willow seemed to come alive again. This was a good sign, Jesse reckoned. Wills had something she could do, something to keep her occupied until they got Xander back. She would cope now. Of course, this left Jesse with nothing to do himself, so he stood and worried until Willow gave a little cry of triumph.

"There it is," Buffy said.

"That runs under the graveyard," Willow added.

"I don't see any access, though." Jesse hated to bring Willow down, but there was no getting away from the reality of the map.

"So, all the city plans are just open to the public?" Giles' question sounded a little too innocent, which sent Willow back into her shell.

"Uh, well, kinda," she said. "I sorta stumbled onto them, when I accidentally decrypted the city council's security system."

"Ah." Giles pointedly looked away, clearly not wanting to have heard that he had just been party to a not entirely legal act. Willow's ears turn positively pink in embarrassment at the Watcher's attitude. Normally, Jesse would have ragged her for general naughtiness and un-Willowly behaviour, but for once he was too focused on the information she'd found to care.

"There's nothing here," Buffy said in frustration. "This is useless!"

"Don't you think you're being a bit hard on yourself?" Giles asked.

"You're the one that told me I wasn't prepared enough," she shot back. "Understatement! I thought I was on top of everything, and then that monster Luke came out of nowhere..." She trailed off, remembering exactly what had happened. "He didn't come out of nowhere. He came from behind me. I was facing the entrance, he came from behind me and he didn't follow me out. The access to the tunnels is in the mausoleum. The girl must have doubled back with Xander after I got out. God, I am so mentally challenged."

"OK, that's where they are. So when are we going to get Xan back?"

Buffy gave Jesse a determined but sympathetic look. "There is no 'we', Jesse," she said. "I'm the Slayer, and you're not."

"Xander's my friend. I'm coming too." Jesse's tone was uncompromising, but Buffy stood her ground.

"Jesse, I can't protect both you and Xander. I'll find him for you, you'll just have to trust me on this."

"But..." Jesse's protest faded out under Buffy's steady gaze. "Great. So I'm useless, is that what you're saying?"

"No, you're not useless, it's just...." Buffy looked helplessly at Giles, who had developed a sudden fascination with the cleanliness of his glasses. "Look, I've been slaying vampires for, um, a long time. Up until just now you didn't even believe in them. The best thing you can do is...." Her eyes lit up as a halfway decent excuse suggested itself. "Is to make sure I have somewhere safe to bring Xander back to."

Jesse looked unimpressed, but before he could say any more, Willow broke in. "Buffy, I'm not anxious to go into a dark place full of monsters, but I do want to help. I need to."

"Then help me," Giles said, studying the computer screen again. "I've been researching this Harvest affair. It seems to be some sort of preordained massacre, rivers of blood, hell on earth, quite charmless. I'm a bit fuzzy however on the details. It may be that you can wrest some information from that dread machine." He looked up at three identical bemused expressions. "That was a bit, er, British, wasn't it?"

*****

It took a while for Jesse to catch up with Buffy in the tunnels. He had good reason: it was further from school to the cemetery than he remembered, Buffy had a head start on him, and he'd had to stop to make a purchase. Still, he hadn't expected her to be quite so far into the tunnels by the time he found her. He also hadn't expected her to greet him with an upraised stake.

"Hey, chill out, it's me," he said hurriedly.

"Jesse!" Buffy didn't quite shout his name; evidently her guilt at nearly staking him was outweighed by her anger at him disobeying her. "What are you doing here?"

"Helping you find Xander."

"You were supposed to stay at school!"

"Yeah, well, I didn't exactly agree to that." Jesse's tone was unapologetic as he stood up to the Slayer. "Look Buffy, I've known Xander since we were about five. I have to come after him, he'd do the same for me."

Buffy scowled at him, but he held her gaze steadily, and it was she who looked down first. "Oh well, I guess you're here now," she said, and turned away. "Just stay back and keep alert."

Jesse mumbled agreement and followed her through the tunnel. After a few moments he asked, "So, let me just check this. Crosses, stakes, garlic, these are all of the good, yes?"

"Yep." Buffy paused a moment to rummage through her shoulder bag. "Here, take this."

Jesse looked at the large cross she held out, then pulled one of his own from the waistband of his jeans. "I told Father Jeremy we had a school play. I'm some way short of pointy-sticksville, though."

"Leave the slaying to me, you keep back and protect Xander when we find him."

"Uh, OK." Jesse didn't really like leaving all the manly fighting stuff to a girl, but Buffy had already demonstrated that she was way better than him. Still, he had the self-respect of the entire male population of Sunnydale to consider. "So what else works?"

"Oh, the usual stuff. Fire, sunlight, holy water, beheading..."

"You've beheaded someone?"

"Oh yeah. There was a time I was pinned down by this guy who played left tackle for varsity, well he used to before he was a vampire. Anyway he had this really, really thick neck and all I had was this little bitty X-acto knife.... You're not loving this story."

Jesse cringed. He was grateful that Buffy couldn't see just how green he had gone in the dim light. "Uh, not exactly. I kinda appreciate the thought, and if we were sitting on a couch making up scary movies I'd love it, but here and now if you keep going I may hurl." He stepped forward onto something that squished, and discovered that it was possible to go more pale. "Do I want to know what that was?" he asked in a slightly sick voice.

Buffy looked over. "Oh, gross!" she said.

"I knew I should have brought a torch," Jesse muttered as he surreptitiously wiped his foot on the concrete.

They continued in silence for a while until Buffy announced, "We're close."

"How can you tell?"

"No more rats."

There was a pause, then Jesse asked in a rather pained voice, "Could we do that again, only this time you give me a comforting answer like 'My spider-sense is tingling?'"

Buffy looked at him. "You find that comforting?"

"Compared to the rodent alarm service, that's a yes."

Buffy looked at him, then her attention was grabbed by a huddled mass ahead of them. Jesse followed her gaze. "Xander," he whispered, then rushed forward to his friend. Xander tried to get away, not seeming to realise that they weren't a threat, but was brought up short by the chain fixed to his ankle.

"Woah, woah," Jesse cried as Buffy approached more cautiously, "it's us, Xan. Are you OK?"

Xander grasped his old buddy like a lifeline, eyes crazed and panting in fear. "No, I am not OK. On a scale of one to ten, I have minus several million OK-ness. Jesse, they're vampires!"

"That's fine, Buffy's a superhero."

"The whole Slayer thing, I know, I was in the library. But Jesse-man, vampires! It's crazy."

Buffy wasted no time snapping the manacle off Xander's leg. Jesse kept his eyes firmly on Xander, trying to reassure the panicked teenager. "Do you think anyone heard that?" he asked as the manacle clattered to the ground.

Jesse's question was answered by a low growl and a shadow moving at the end of the cross-tunnel. Something had heard them, something vampiric he'd bet. The three of them needed no further prompting to turn and run.

"They knew you were gonna come," Xander panted. "They said that I was the bait."

"Great, now you tell us," Jesse muttered.

"Hey, it's not like I could send you a postcard."

"Knock it off, guys." Buffy turned back down the way they had come in and stopped dead. "Oops," she said to the vampires ahead of her.

"Not good, not good," Xander chanted to himself in tones of rising panic.

"Do you know another way out?" Buffy asked him urgently.

"I dunno... maybe this way."

They ran. There was nothing else to do.

"They're toying with us," Buffy muttered, eyes hard. "They could catch us any time, they're faster than we are. They're just playing, herding us..."

"...into a dead end," Jesse finished in dismay as they burst into a tiny room.

"I don't think this is the way out," Buffy told Xander, scanning the room quickly for any exits.

"We can't fight our way back through those things," Jesse said. "What do we do?"

"I've got an idea," said Xander. "You can die."

Jesse whipped around in confusion, and was confronted with the fangs and ridges of a vampire overlaid on his friend's face. "X-Xander?" he asked, not wanting to believe his eyes. "God, Xander, I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Xander seemed almost insulted. "I feel good now, Jess, I'm strong. I can do things I only dreamed of before. I can even hear your heartbeat."

"But not your own." Jesse's voice was ragged with the pain of seeing his old friend so changed, so... dead. Buffy took the opportunity of Xander's distraction to start trying to force the heavy steel door of the room closed.

"I serve the Master now," Xander continued fervently, "because I choose to. Because what's coming will be worth the inconvenience. If that means you die, well, at least I get to feed."

"Jesse!" Buffy cried as Xander began to lunge at his former friend. "Cross!"

Jesse raised his cross, horror written on his face as Xander flinched away. "Xander, we're buds, remember?"

Xander sneered. "You're so far below me now it's not funny. Still, if it'll make you happy I can turn you and then we can be buds again."

"No," Jesse whispered, "not like that." His hands shook, and that was all the opening Xander needed to knock the cross aside. Before he could do more than shake up Jesse, Buffy grabbed him and threw him onto the oncoming vampires, knocking them all down.

"Help me," she shouted to Jesse, and together they pushed the door shut on the advancing horde. The vampires immediately began pounding on the steel barrier, slowly tearing it apart. "Now, how do we get out of here?"

Jesse pointed up at the overhead vent. "Could we get up there?" he asked. Buffy moved quickly, knocking the grille out of the way and moving aside so that her lanky friend could haul himself up. She followed, as their pursuers twisted the solid steel door aside to break into the room. Then they scrambled for dear life in the darkness, blindly seeking ways back up to the surface, the vampires hot on their heels. They nearly didn't make it; if the access cover in the power station hadn't been illuminated by the afternoon sun....

*****

Willow looked up as Buffy and Jesse entered the library. "Did you find Xander?" she asked.

"Yeah," Jesse said flatly as he walked past her.

Not being stupid, Willow picked up on his mood. "W-was he dead?" she asked timidly.

"Worse," said Buffy. She sat down beside her the other girl and squeezed her hand sympathetically. "I'm sorry, Willow. We were too late. They were waiting for us."

"Xander," Willow whispered, her lip trembling. For a moment it looked like she was going to burst into tears again, but she pulled herself together. "At least you two are all right," she said, trying to find what little good there was in the situation.

Across the room, Jesse kicked a trash can hard, startling the girls. "Vampires suck," he announced. "I just want to be totally clear on this point. Vampires suck big time."

Buffy sighed. "So, Giles, have you found a way to make this day any worse?"

The Watcher seemed almost too embarrassed to reply. "How about the end of the world?" he offered.

"I knew we could count on you," Jesse muttered darkly.

Businesslike again, Giles filled them in on the Master, the Hellmouth, and the Harvest, using words and images that made Jesse's head spin. He tried to focus his anger, to see what he had to do to stop this Master's plans. He owed it to Xander, to the Xander he remembered. The Master had caused Xander's death, and he was going to pay. In spades.

"The minion will bear this symbol," Giles finished, drawing a three-pointed star on the whiteboard.

"So," Buffy mused, "I dust anyone sporting that symbol and no Harvest."

Giles considered this for a moment. "Simply put, yes."

Jesse grinned. It was all so straightforward; kill one vampire, and the Master's unlife sucks dead bunnies for another century. Jesse wasn't so stupid as to try to put the stake in himself, that was Buffy's job, but he was going to do everything he could to make sure that happened.

"Any idea where this little get-together is being held?" Buffy asked.

"There are a number of possibilities," Giles began.

Jesse interrupted him. "The Bronze," he said firmly.

Everyone looked at him. "Are you sure?" Willow asked uncertainly.

"It's where all the tasty young munchies are," he replied. "Besides, it's where Xander's going to be, trust me."

"We should go then," said Giles, suiting actions to words. "The sun will be down before long."

*****

By the time they arrived at the Bronze, the doors were locked. Buffy had needed to stop for supplies of stakes, garlic and holy water, but had been caught by her mother. They'd had to waste valuable time circumventing Mrs Summers' decision to ground Buffy for the night, by which time the vampires were all inside.

"Can't you break it down?" Jesse asked impatiently.

"No, not that thing." Buffy thought furiously. "Look, you guys try the back entrance, I'll... find my own way in."

"Come on." Jesse hurried away, only to be stopped by Buffy's frantic cry.

"Wait! Guys, get the exit cleared and the people out, that's all. Don't go wild bunch on me."

They hesitated a moment before Giles said, "See you inside, then."

Jesse smiled to himself as they hurried round the building. He hadn't actually promised anything, not as such. Xander was still uppermost in his mind; his former friend would be in the Bronze, and in Jesse's mind it had become his job to stop the vampire. If he got to dust any other bad guys, so much the better. If he failed... well, at least he'd tried.

Unfortunately for them, the back door was as securely locked as the front. "Damn," Jesse said in frustration. "We've got to get in before Xander does something stupider than usual."

"You listen to me," Giles said angrily. "Xander is dead. You have to remember that when you see him, you're not looking at your friend, you're looking at the thing that killed him."

"I... yeah... I know, it's just...." Jesse didn't really know what to say, so he was grateful when Giles let him off the hook.

"Well don't just stand there," the older man said with some asperity. "Help me use one of these barrels as a battering ram."

It took them a while to force the door, and it was far from quiet, but they attracted no further vampiric attention, perhaps because Buffy was already in action herself. Jesse was the first in, not even pausing in the backstage area long enough to make sure it was clear. Giles and Willow could do that; he had to start people coming their way.

A little later, after Buffy had handily decapitated the vampires that his cross could only keep back, Jesse came across a sight that filled him with horror. There was Cordelia — his Cordy — forced down on the ground with Xander leaning over her, ready to take a bite.

"Xan-man," he cried, pulling out a stake. "Don't make me do this." All of his previous intentions melted away in the face of his former friend; he just couldn't stake Xander, he had to try to get him back.

Xander looked round, a brilliant smile on his inhuman face. "Buddy!" he said, putting so much sarcasm into the word that Jesse flinched.

"Xan, I know... please tell me there's some part of you still in there."

Xander straightened, letting Cordelia go. "I could tell you that," he sneered, "but you know, you're not worth the trouble." Jesse looked at him helplessly, holding his stake up to Xander's breast. "Let's get something straight here," the vampire continued. "Xander was a loser who couldn't even get up the courage to ask a girl out, never mind anything else. I danced with Cordelia tonight. I'd have gone further, but we got a little distracted here. You are still a loser. You're standing here, stake at my heart, and you haven't even got the guts to—"

Jesse never would hear what he hadn't got the guts to do. He pushed his stake forwards as one of the fleeing clubbers barged into Xander from behind, and after a moment's wide-eyed pain the vampire crumbled into dust.

"Oh God, Xan," he whispered, sinking to his knees. "You had to go and mention Cordy, didn't you?"

*****

Jesse knew he was dreaming. He could remember helping Buffy and Giles tidy up the bodies in the Bronze before they all went home, so if he was standing in the Bronze now it had to be a dream.

"'S right, buddy," Xander called from where he lounged against the pool table. "I'm dead, so this has gotta be a dream." Vampire fangs slurred his words, and his smile was anything but reassuring.

"You were dead before," Jesse said dully, "you just hadn't stopped moving."

Dream-Xander pointedly stepped away from the table, and leaned against a column.

"Yeah, OK, bad wordage. You know what I mean."

"So how about a game, Jess?"

Jesse blinked. This wasn't what he'd expected at all. Death and destruction maybe, but not playing around. "What sort of game?" he asked.

The vampire's ridges and fangs smoothed out, and an achingly familiar goofy smile plastered itself on his face. "Truth or dare?" he suggested.

"With you? No way, man! You'd dare me to do something stupid."

"Only 'cos you won't face the truth!" Xander sang out, idly swinging around the column he had been leaning on.

"OK then, truth." Jesse knew this wasn't the brightest of moves, but he couldn't let Xander win.

"Why did you stake me?" Xander shot back instantly.

"Because you were evil."

"Oh come on, you never believed that crap."

"You killed Xander!"

Xander looked down at himself. "Walks like Xander, talks like Xander. Gee, I wonder if WatcherMan has been feeding you a line of bull?"

"You... you were going to kill Cordelia." Jesse was more shaken than he wanted to admit. Xander was far too good at cutting away the comforting things that Jesse had been telling himself. Truth to tell, he wasn't totally convinced that Xander was something else, something evil. Even after the way his former best friend had treated him, trying to kill him, Jesse still wanted to believe that something of Xander survived. That something of Xander could be saved.

"Ah, now we're getting somewhere. I was going to kill your precious Cordelia. Or was it just that I was getting off with her? I could have been about to kiss her for all you know. Did you kill me because you were jealous?"

"Shut up!" Jesse shouted. "That's enough. You had your question, now it's my turn!"

"Truth," said Xander promptly. "What?" he asked as Jesse looked momentarily surprised. "You'd just dare me to not eat for a week, and I'm too young to diet."

Xander's jokes were still as corny as ever, Jesse reflected as he tried to sort his own thoughts into order. What did he want to know? Could he trust the vampire not to lie anyway? Would it really make any difference in the end?

"Getting bored here," Xander said in a sing-song voice.

"Why did you let me kill you?" Jesse blurted out. It was the first thing that sprang to mind, and he had a feeling that a bored vampire was something to be avoided.

It was Xander's turn to blink in surprise. He covered it quickly, though. "Who says I let you?" he said.

"You didn't even try to get the stake away from me. You stood there, let me hold a stake to your chest and practically goaded me into it. Even I can do the math, Xan. Why?"

Xander looked somber. "Maybe I didn't think I was fast enough," he said. "Maybe I didn't think you had the guts. Maybe I thought that even if you did, I could stop you. Maybe... maybe I wanted you to do it." He looked at Jesse bleakly for a moment, then suddenly broke into a shit-eating grin. "Guess you'll never know, since Xander's dead and I'm just a figment of your imagination. My turn. Truth or dare?"

"Do I really need to tell you what an amazingly stupid idea this is?" Giles' voice came from the shadows at the edges of the club. Jesse barely glanced at him as he came into the light.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, concentrating on Xander though he spoke to Giles. "Evil vampire, stake on sight. Have I missed anything? Oh yeah, leave the slaying to the Slayer, that's it."

"Involving yourself with this creature in any way is incredibly dangerous, Jesse. Despite appearances, this is not your friend. Xander is dead. This being is not and never has been him. They may share some superficial memories, but that's as far as it goes. Think about this; last night he saved your life. Today he tried to take it. Are those really the actions of the same man, or just a particularly cruel form of evil?"

Giles was not helping, Jesse thought. Intellectually, he knew all this stuff; emotionally, given the choice between his childhood friend and a condescending Englishman, he knew which way his heart was jumping. "Giles, I know— what's wrong with your neck?"

Giles touched his neck, and looked aghast when his hand came away red. He was bleeding, a trickle of brightness against the dull tweed of his jacket. Before Jesse's horrified eyes the trickle became a torrent, more blood pouring out of the Watcher than a human body could possibly hold.

"Oh," Giles said in dazed surprise, and collapsed to the floor.

Jesse was frozen in shock. He didn't like Giles much, but that didn't mean that he wanted to see him dead. Did it?

"My bad," said Xander, smirking. "I got the munchies and, well, I was keeping Cordelia for dessert."

"You... He... Xander, you can't..."

Xander shook his head sadly. "You still don't get it, do you? I'm a vampire. I drink blood. It's what I do now. Or at least it's what I did before you killed me." He sighed, throwing Jesse a look that bordered on annoyance. "I'm bored with this. Let's play another game, hide and seek. You find me, I'll stop killing people."

"Xander, no! I..." Jesse shut his mouth. It was pointless, Xander wasn't there any more. Instead, the Bronze was suddenly crowded with teenagers with the vampire nowhere in sight. "I'm beginning to hate my dreams," he murmured. "I need to have words with my subconscious."

"I am your subconscious, moron," a voice whispered in his ear.

Jesse turned quickly, but Xander was already gone again. Jesse caught no more than a glimpse of a colourful Hawaiian shirt disappearing into the crowd. He swore quietly, and waded through the throng in what he could only hope was the right direction.

Somewhere between an eternity and thirty seconds later Jesse came across Cordelia. She was standing with her entourage, chatting away merrily. No one seemed to notice the two holes in her neck, or the small trickle of blood leading away from it. "Cordy!" he shouted.

Cordelia appeared to consider his cry. "Did anyone hear something just then?" she asked her cronies, not acknowledging Jesse's presence directly.

"Cordy, where's Xander? I've got to find him."

"There it is again, an annoying whining noise."

Some of the girls giggled, and suddenly it was more than Jesse would stand for. He grabbed Cordelia and spun her round until they were facing each other. "I. Need. To. Find. Xander."

"Take your hands off me, mister," Cordelia flared.

Normally, Jesse would have backed off and made conciliatory noises, but he was in no mood for that. "No. I haven't got time for your games, and besides this is my dream and you're dead here anyway. Now where is Xander?"

Cordelia looked at him in puzzlement that turned into unhappy comprehension. "That's right," she said, "I am dead, aren't I?" With those words she slumped to the floor, apparently lifeless.

Jesse crouched down, quickly checking for a pulse. He found nothing. Swearing loud and long, he stood and strode off into the crowd. Them coming too. last thing he heard from the Cordettes was Harmony saying "He's gone, Cordy, you can get up now. Cordy? Cordy!"

"Jesse!"

Jesse turned round to find Willow clinging to his arm. "Wills! Are you OK?" He inspected her neck quickly.

"I'm fine. What's the matter?"

"Xander's here somewhere."

"Oh good. Where is he?"

"Oh bad," Jesse contradicted her. "He's a vampire, remember?"

"Oh." Willow suddenly looked very fragile, and Jesse felt an urge to pat her hand reassuringly. "Do you really think he'd hurt me?" she asked in a small voice.

"I don't know," Jesse told her, scanning the crowd anxiously. "I hope not, but he's killed Giles and Cordy already."

"But we're his friends, he's known us since kindergarten."

"That makes you taste all the sweeter," said a familiar voice behind them. Jesse whipped round to see Xander holding Willow, sniffing at her neck. "Mmm, smells good enough to eat."

"I found you," Jesse said hopelessly. "You said you'd stop killing people if I found you."

"Huh? Oh, the game." Xander shrugged at him. "Sorry 'bout that, pal, guess I must have lied." Then he vamped out, fangs poised at Willow's neck.

Jesse punched him. This being a dream, Jesse wasn't too surprised when Xander went flying, crashing through a table before finishing up against the wall. "Don't touch her," he yelled. "Don't you dare touch her."

Xander sat up and rubbed his jaw. "Well, that was mature," he said sarcastically.

"Don't start it," Jesse practically snarled at him. "There's nothing of Xander left in you. He'd never hurt Willow, no matter what."

"Oh," said Xander as he got to his feet. "I guess if I'm not Xander, then there's no reason for me not to kill you." He smiled brightly at Jesse, then charged.

"Uh, some help here," Jesse shouted as he backed across the Bronze, desperately fending off the vampire. Unfortunately the club had emptied of people while he wasn't paying attention, and no one came at his call. As Xander's superior strength forced him against the wall, he glimpsed a petite blond perched on the pool table. "Buffy," he cried in relief. "Help!"

The Slayer peered critically at the backs of her hands. "Sorry Jesse, my nails aren't dry yet. Besides, you were the one who wanted to do the Slaying stuff. Are you telling me you can't take on one newly fledged vamp?"

"I can't, OK? Is that what you want to hear? I'm not good enough. Now help me, please!"

"Too late," Xander murmured, and bit.

Jesse sat bolt upright in bed, panting in shock. His hand flew to his neck where he had felt the needle-sharp fangs penetrate, and he sagged in relief as it came away dry. "No blood. A dream, that's all. It was just a nightmare."

That didn't stop it hurting, somehow. Xander was dead, and Jesse had done the right thing in staking the vampire that he'd become, but the loss still hurt. There was a Xander-shaped hole in Jesse's life now, something that no one else would ever be able to fill.

Sighing unhappily, Jesse settled back down and was soon lost to an uneasy sleep.

*****

Everything looked different in the light of day. It certainly sounded different, if you listened to Cordelia's tales of biker gangs fighting in the Bronze.

"I was hoping she'd at least remember that I saved her life," Jesse confided to Willow. "Would it have killed her to say thank you? But no, she has to go and say she didn't see who pulled the big guy off of her, and to hear her tell it the guy was six foot eight with muscles like the Incredible Hulk. If I try and say it was me she'll just make me look stupid. Well, stupider."

"People have a tendency to rationalise what they can," Giles told him, "and forget what they can't."

"Believe me," Buffy said, "I've seen it happen."

"Well, I'll never forget it," Willow said.

"Me neither," Jesse added.

"Good," said Giles. "Next time you'll be prepared."

"Next time?" Jesse asked almost eagerly. "We get to play with more vampires?" It wasn't that he wanted to fight more vampires, he was painfully aware of his shortcomings in that department, but he was curiously glad that he wasn't finished with the undead. That they weren't finished. He still had a lot of anger to burn off, anger at having his best friend snatched away from him.

"Not just vampires," Giles replied with matching glee, making Jesse wonder for a moment what the stuffy Englishman had to be angry about. "We might have to face witches, werewolves, demons, Lord knows what."

"I can hardly wait," said Buffy, full of false cheer.

Giles frowned at her. "We are at the centre of a mystical convergence," he admonished, then looked off into the distance, eyes unfocused. "We might be all that stands between the Earth and its total destruction."

"You're enjoying this way too much," Jesse said.

"I don't know," Buffy told him, "you've got to look on the bright side. I'm pinning my hopes on getting kicked out of school."

"Oh yeah," Willow agreed enthusiastically. As the girls wandered off, they could be heard discussing what was most likely to work, and what had already been done this year.

"The Earth is doomed," Giles said to no one in particular.

Jesse paused. His memories of the nightmare were somewhat fuzzy, but he did remember one thing clearly. He wasn't up to anything much in the vampire-hunting stakes, but to do anything about it he'd have to swallow his pride.

"Hey Giles," he asked quietly, "you know you're supposed to be training Buffy? Well, that's kinda a stupid question, obviously you know that. Would you have time to train me too?"

Giles stopped abruptly. "Whatever for?" he asked. "You aren't the Slayer, you shouldn't even think of taking on vampires by yourself."

"Yeah I know. It's just if we are going to be fighting ghosties and ghoulies, I just thought being able to fight at all might help."

Giles gave him a long hard stare. "I'm not promising anything," he said, "but see me after school. In the library."

Jesse shuddered. The library. If it meant helping to be sure that no one else had to go through what Xander went through, he could brave that much concentrated knowledge. You had to make sacrifices, after all, if you were serious about this Slaying business.


	2. The Pack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strange goings-on at the zoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some episode dialogue was harmed in the writing of this story.

Sunnydale Zoo. There was something almost sinful, Jesse decided, about bumming around in the zoo on a school day. Oh sure, they were supposed to be learning about the habits of wild animals, but Jesse had long since perfected the technique of letting education slip past him without sullying his brain with actual knowledge.

The lanky dark-haired boy was standing against the rails around the turtle enclosure, idly watching as the creatures made their slow way around the pool. Willow was leaning up against him in that comfortable way that only old friends have. This was... peaceful, Jesse thought. They should do it more often.

"Look, there's Buffy." Willow tugged on his arm, dislodging him from his tranquil thoughts and ruining his mood.

She was right, though. There was Buffy, mooching around and looking pretty miserable. What she had to be miserable about was beyond Jesse. After all, she wasn't the one stupid enough to fall for a giant preying mantis, and consequently have his lack of getting laid-ness become public knowledge. Well, public to Buffy, Willow, Giles and that idiot Blayne Mall anyway. The only plus side that Jesse could see was that big-talking Blayne turned out to be a virgin too, so he wasn't about to blab to the world. It didn't help at all that Willow thought they were sweet, saving themselves for the right girl. Sweet! What kind of word was that for a man?

Willow nudged him. Oh yeah, he thought belatedly, possible girlfriend in a funk. Even if she did think of him as 'one of the girls,' which kinda hurt because he wasn't girly at all, no sir.

Prod.

OK, Operation Cheer Up Buffy is go.

"Hey Buffy, wait up."

"You'll never guess where we've been," Willow bubbled.

"We saw the zebras mating, very interesting, thank you."

"It was like the Heimlich, with stripes."

Buffy gave them one of her patented "you're weird" looks. For some reason that made Willow flush and pull away from him nervously. "How about you, Buffy?" she asked.

"I watched the fishes."

"Were they good?" enquiring Willows wanted to know.

"They were fishes, Will."

Jesse frowned. "You know, Buff, I get the feeling you're not exactly grooving on this whole field trip thing."

Buffy sighed. "Sorry guys. It's just that we did the same zoo trip at my old school every year. Same old same old."

"Ah, you're missing one vital point here," Jesse said conspiratorially. "While we're here, we aren't in class."

Buffy's eyes widened, then she smiled. "You know, suddenly the animals seem all shiny and new."

"Talking of animals," Willow said, looking over towards a closed off animal house. "I wonder what Kyle and friends are doing with Lance?"

Jesse snorted contemptuously at the boys slipping past the 'Closed' signs into the hyena house. "Can't be anything good," he said.

"Why are they always so mean?"

"Some people just are mean, Wills," Buffy told her.

"It's like it's written into the school constitution or something," Jesse offered. "You gotta have your four basic student groups: nerds, jocks, slackers and mean kids. They'll probably grow up to be major corporate CEOs."

"That or school caretakers," Buffy agreed. "Hello, what's Blayne doing going in there too?"

Jesse glanced over to where Blayne was also making his way into the hyena house. He frowned, then his eyes narrowed and he stalked over to where a girl was standing alone.

"I think Blayne must be trying to impress Cordelia," Willow said quietly.

"A sign of true desperation," Buffy murmured back. The two girls exchanged a look, then by unspoken agreement trailed after their friend, ready to pick up the pieces when Cordelia inevitably shot him down.

"Uh, hi Cordy." As usual when he was actually talking to Queen C, all of Jesse's carefully prepared lines immediately left for a vacation in Hawaii, or somewhere else where Jesse wasn't going to see them any time soon.

"Oh look, one of the animals has escaped."

"Good thing I'm here to protect you, then."

Cordelia looked at him and sniffed. "I'll remember to call you when the cockroaches look threatening."

"Hey, at least I'm here, unlike your escort for the day." Jesse realised his mistake as he closed his mouth. Never imply that Cordy has been abandoned, her ego wouldn't allow that.

"Blayne is being a mature individual, unlike some people I could mention, and helping the geographically challenged."

"You mean he's trying to drag Lance out here when he should be adoring you?" Jesse tried gamely. Cordelia merely raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow at him.

"It's not like he's doing something dangerous," Willow said, appearing at Jesse's shoulder.

"Yeah," Buffy said from the other side. "Kyle and his buddies are obnoxious, but they're all talk."

"Mostly," Willow added. The three of them looked at each other.

"What?" Cordelia was annoyed to find herself no longer the centre of the universe twice in as many minutes.

"We'd better help," the other three said in unison, and set off leaving an infuriated Cordelia behind them.

Unfortunately they had barely reached the barrier when they were stopped by a zoo-keeper. "Are you kids blind or just illiterate?" he yelled. "Because hyenas are very quick to prey on the weak."

"Sorry mister," Jesse said, immediately assuming his assigned job as scapegoat. "We were just, I mean we thought..." He trailed off under the man's skeptical gaze. Way to impress the Buffster, he thought.

"You're not going in," the caretaker said firmly.

"No one's going in," Willow agreed quickly.

"Why is this place off-limits anyway?" Buffy asked, giving her best dumb blonde smile.

"Quarantine," the zoo-keeper told her. "These hyenas just got in from Africa, so keep out. Even if they call your name."

"What?" Instantly he had their undivided attention.

"A Masai tribesman once told me that hyenas can imitate human voices. They follow people around during the day, learning their names. Then at night, when the camp fires die down, they call out. Once they separate someone, the pack devours them."

The three young people's reactions couldn't have been more different. Willow was looking faintly sick, horrified by the whole idea. Buffy was clearly more worried than scared; presumably having faced off a she-mantis, dealing with man-killers was nothing new. Jesse, on the other hand, was savouring the story with all the excitement of a horror movie addict.

"Oh wow, that is so cool," he said. The others looked at him. "Well it is," he said defensively. "Scariness and death, what more could you want out of a spooky story?"

"Now I remember why we never let you choose the videos," Willow muttered.

"Are you sure it's just a story, son?" the caretaker asked, an amused smile playing around his lips. "Now scat, before I have to call your teachers."

They scatted, at least until they were out of sight of the zoo-keeper. "I have got to come back here," Jesse said. "I hope that guy knows some more stories."

"What if it's true?" Willow asked nervously. "After all vampires are real, and we always thought they were just stories."

"Not to worry, Wills," Buffy replied. "The fang gang may be out on the streets, or at least the cemeteries, but the hyenas are safely locked up here."

"But what if they got out?" Willow insisted. "If they're smart, they might figure out how to open the cages, or dig their way out, or—"

"Now you see why I love her imagination," Jesse interrupted fondly. "They're animals. This is a zoo. They're pretty good at keeping animals in zoos, you know."

"I'm more worried about the human animals anyway," Buffy said. "Talking of whom... woah!" Lance Pederson ran past, almost colliding with Buffy as he glanced nervously over his shoulder.

"Well, that was odd." Jesse and Buffy looked quizzical at Willow's pronouncement. "He didn't apologise. Lance always apologies for everything. He even apologised to me once. What?" she asked as her friends continued to stare at her.

"Nothing," Jesse replied, stifling a smile at the amazing non-apologising Willow. "It's just—"

"Incoming jerkoids." Jesse followed Buffy's concerned gaze to see Blayne and the other boys heading their way. They looked different somehow, more confident or arrogant than usual.

Jesse drew himself up to his full height and stepped into Blayne's path. He was a little disconcerted when Kyle and the others stopped too and all five stared at him contemptuously. "OK," he said, "what did they do to Lance this time?"

The gruesome foursome giggled, which Jesse found really unnerving. More unnerving, however, was the way that Blayne smirked up at him. This wasn't how their confrontations went. Sure there was macho posturing, but not with the kind of confidence Blayne was exuding. Both of them were normally too worried that the other would say something terminally embarrassing to be happy with the situation.

"Ah, is you worried about poor little Lancie?" Blayne asked in tones normally reserved for cooing over babies. "Did he want you to kiss him better then?"

Jesse coloured, studying Blayne warily. The shorter boy didn't seem to be the slightest bit intimidated by him at all, a far cry from the cowardly braggart that Jesse knew and loathed. "What did you do to him?" he ground out.

"The question you should be asking is, what are we going to do to you?" Blayne started laughing at some private joke, something he evidently shared with the other four. Their laughter was not a pleasant sound; it sent a little tremor of fear running down Jesse's spine, and he had to force himself to keep standing straight.

"You're going to tell him what you did." Buffy inserted herself into the pissing contest before Jesse got completely humiliated. He didn't know whether to be grateful or annoyed at her intervention.

Blayne's posture changed abruptly, the easy confidence with while he had faced Jesse replaced with wariness and... something. Jesse wasn't quite sure what it was, he just knew he didn't like it.

"Buffy," Blayne said carefully, his voice betraying nothing of his feelings. "We didn't touch him."

"He just got all scared on his own?" Buffy asked sceptically.

"Yeah, scared of the animals," Kyle said with a little laugh that set the rest of his gang snickering again.

Blayne's lips twitched into a smile, but his eyes never left Buffy. "Now if you don't mind I'm going back to my girl. For now."

Jesse opened his mouth to protest that by no stretch of anyone's imagination was Cordelia "Blayne's girl", but the shorter boy shot him such a look of utter contempt that he shut it again in a hurry. He shuddered as he watched Blayne stride confidently over to Cordelia, shadowed by the other four. "OK," he said slowly, "I am officially freaked."

"Jealous is more like it," Buffy told him with an amused smile.

"No, I mean that was just so... not Blayne."

"Yeah, that was weird," Willow agreed. "What was all that with the 'We didn't touch him' stuff anyway?"

"What, they can't be friends? I'd have thought they were made for each other."

Willow and Jesse looked at each other, then back to Buffy. "Blayne and Kyle have been friends since like never," Willow explained. "You know how image conscious Blayne is, and he's always made it clear that Kyle and his friends were the wrong sort."

Buffy looked a little confused for a moment, so Jesse filled her in. "Not rich enough," he said.

"I take it back," Buffy muttered. "He's perfect for Cordelia." She noticed Jesse's wince and coloured. "Sorry."

Jesse grimaced. The day had been shaping up so well.

*******

"Willow!" Jesse said, "Friend! Buddy! Bearer of food to the hungry masses!"

"Thanks, Will," Buffy said as Willow deposited her load of cokes and burgers on the table. The Bronze was busy around them, though not as full as it would get later in the evening. For now it was enough that could finish their day out of class with what Jesse joyously claimed was real food.

"His mother can burn water," Willow told Buffy as Jesse practically salivated over his plate.

"Eat now," he said, "embarrassing stories later."

"There we go," Willow said, handing the last plate to Buffy as Jesse took a big bite of his burger. "Enjoy your veggieburgers."

Jesse froze around his mouthful. After a moment he chewed carefully a couple of times and swallowed. "Veggieburger?" he asked weakly. Even Buffy looked a bit put out.

"They're good for you," Willow said anxiously. "They're full of protein and vitamins, and... and no animals got hurt. That's good, isn't it?"

"Great. The one day I can get my hands on some real meat, and my best friend goes all vegetarian on me."

Willow gave him a hurt look, at which Jesse's resolve crumbled. He'd known her too long, and it seemed she knew his every weakness. Any second now her lower lip would start to tremble, then... yes, there it went. "It tastes real good though," he lied, and tried to look enthusiastic as he took another bite.

Willow was all smiles again. "Did you see Herbert?" she asked.

"Herbert?"

"The school team's new mascot," Buffy translated.

"He's such a cute little piggie!" Willow cooed.

"He's not cute," Buffy said in a frankly lousy impression of Principal Flutie, "he's a ferocious Razorback."

"Or bacon as I prefer to call him." Jesse caught the beginnings of another Willow pout and back-pedalled hurriedly. "But very cute bacon I'm sure, it would be wrong to eat— Hey!" He turned, ready to threaten serious violence to whoever had snatched his food out of his hand, and flinched involuntarily. Blayne stood over him, sniffing contemptuously at the burger before tossing it back on the table. Even though he was taller than Blayne, Jesse found himself shrinking back at the confidence with which Blayne moved.

"Still hanging with these losers, Buffy? You want to come with me, I'll show you some real fun."

That should have sounded lame, Jesse thought. Somehow it didn't sound like Blayne's usual line of bragging, more like a smouldering promise. Even Buffy seemed to be slightly taken aback, but she rallied quickly.

"What's the matter, Cordelia not good enough for you?" she asked coolly.

"Let's just say that I know a good thing when I see it."

"Unfortunately for you, so do I."

Blayne didn't even flinch at the slapdown. "Your loss," he said with a smirk. He leant in towards Buffy, sniffing lightly. "Huh."

"What?"

"You took a shower."

Even Buffy looked weirded out by that. "Yes," she said slowly, "in fact I'm actually known for it."

"Good." Blayne either didn't notice the sarcasm in Buffy's voice or didn't care. His attention was distracted by a small scuffle at another table where Rhonda, Kyle and the others were intimidating a fat kid into leaving. "Definitely your loss," he said absently, and sauntered off towards the group.

Willow closed her mouth with an audible snap. "I've never seen him acting like that," she said.

"Me either," Jesse said. Then he brightened. "Hey, since he's mauled my burger, I ought to go get a replacement. With beef."

*****

Jesse limped out of the boys' changing rooms to where Buffy and Willow were waiting in the corridor. "Man, I hate dodgeball," he said. "Do the jocks really have to throw the ball so hard?"

"And right there?" Willow added sympathetically. Jesse blushed bright red.

"It wasn't any of the jocks that got you, Jesse," Buffy said before he could protest that he hadn't been got _right there_ right there. "Blayne nailed you while Tor was purposely distracting you."

Jesse winced. "Can we not put it like that, please?"

"Oh relax, McNally," a voice Jesse was beginning to hate said from behind him. He turned to see Blayne strutting up to him, his new-found hangers-on a few yards back. "It's not like you were using it for anything."

Jesse went white.

"In fact I'd say we were doing you a favour," Blayne continued as the others started cackling with laughter. "Maybe you should ask who liked seeing you on your knees." Kyle managed to stop giggling long enough to blow Jesse a mocking kiss. "After all, we left your ass intact."

"Shut up!" Jesse roared, pushing Blayne back against the lockers. "Just... shut up." He raised a fist to throw a punch, but before it could land Blayne twisted and shoved, leaving Jesse pinned against the lockers with his wrists held firmly.

"Oo," Blayne cooed mockingly, "he likes to play rough." He crowded right up against Jesse, sniffing at the curve of his neck.

"Let go of me, you perv," Jesse said desperately. He tried wriggling to shift Blayne off, froze when he realised what that looked like, then yelled as Blayne bit down hard on his shoulder.

Then the surprising strength holding him down was gone, and Jesse realised that Buffy had hauled Blayne off him. There was no laughter now. Instead, all five of them were staring past Buffy at him with expressions that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

"Go," Buffy said flatly. "Now. Before I make you."

Blayne and the others wrenched their attention to her, then seemed to come to some communal decision. They relaxed back into the lazily arrogant poses that no longer fooled Jesse at all. With one final contemptuous glance at Jesse that turned once again into mocking laughter, they left. This time, Jesse couldn't stop himself shivering at the sound.

"Are you OK?" Willow asked, reaching out to him.

"Don't—" he said quickly, pushing away from the lockers. Don't touch, he managed not to say. Bad enough that Buffy had had to save him again. Bad enough that they'd witnessed his utter humiliation. "I'm fine, I'm... he bit me?"

Willow nodded.

"We should tell Giles," Buffy said, still looking out in the direction that Blayne and the others had gone.

"Tell him what, exactly?" Jesse protested, albeit weakly. The girls knowing was one thing. Mr Giles was quite another.

"That Blayne's acting all weird, of course."

"Oh, like you don't know what he's going to say to that."

*****

"That's devastating," Giles agreed blandly. "He's turned into a sixteen year old boy. Of course, you'll have to kill him."

"OK, that is a total abuse of sarcasm," Buffy snapped back.

Jesse rolled his eyes, managing by heroic effort not to say 'I told you so.' He and the Watcher tolerated each other, but no more than that. Giles seemed to recognise that Buffy's friends came with the whole Slaying package, much though he disapproved of their exposure to danger. Jesse, for his part, took up the self-defence lessons that Giles had been persuaded to give but never managed to connect with the man himself. Giles was just too... British for the teenager to cope with.

"She's serious, Giles," he said. Normally this would be Willow's job, being the reasonable one, but she had been stopped by Miss Calendar about some extra work. Their conversation had got so computery that Buffy and Jesse had fled for their lives, or at least their sanity.

"So am I, except for the part about killing him. Testosterone is a great equaliser. It turns all men into morons, as I'm sure you'll find out soon enough." He peered at Jesse, who squirmed all over again at the thought of what had happened out in the hallway. "Ah. The good news is that he and you will get over it."

Buffy groaned in exasperation. "I cannot believe that you of all people are trying to Scully me here. There's something Hellmouthy going on. Get your books. Look stuff up."

"Look up what, exactly?"

"He bit Jesse."

Jesse briefly considered wishing the ground would open up and swallow him, then realised what would likely be waiting for him if that did happen. It would almost be worth it not to have Giles holding that particular tidbit over him.

"That is a little unusual," Giles allowed. "Are you quite sure he isn't—"

"It was broad daylight and he barely drew blood," Jesse said impatiently. "Now can we move on, please?"

Giles gave him a look that promised this wasn't forgotten, then turned back to Buffy. "You have to remember that teenage boys can be very cruel..."

"Hey!"

"...especially ones from relatively privileged backgrounds such as Blayne. They tease, they torment, they prey on the weak. It's all perfectly normal teen behaviour."

"What did you just say?" Buffy asked, frowning.

"Blayne's an asshole?" Jesse suggested.

"They prey on the weak. Where have I heard that before." Buffy's eyes widened as it all suddenly clicked. "The zoo-keeper. They've been acting totally wiggy since we went to the zoo. Blayne and Kyle and all of them went into the hyena house."

"And that laugh..." Jesse shivered just remembering it.

"You're saying that Blayne and his friends are becoming hyenas?" Giles sounded frankly sceptical.

"Or possessed by one, or something." Buffy stuck to her guns now she had an actual theory.

Jesse thought of something and began to panic. "Oh my God, he bit me, am I going to turn into one too?"

"I've never heard of such a thing," Giles said firmly. "Although you might want to make sure your tetanus booster is up to date."

"You mean I might catch rabies or something?"

"Just go to the school nurse," Giles said wearily. "She'll—" he broke off as Willow burst into the library.

"They found Herbert!" she said.

"The pig?" Buffy asked.

"He was missing?" Jesse couldn't helping thinking that Willow had announced the finding of Herbert like it was a bad thing.

"He was. Now he's dead. Also eaten. Principal Flutie's freaking out."

Buffy looked at Giles. "Testosterone, huh?"

Giles rather sheepishly made his way towards his office. "What are you going to do?" Willow asked.

"Get my books," he said drily. "Look stuff up. And make sure Jesse sees the nurse about that bite."

*****

Nurse Reindorf didn't help Jesse's state of mind any. She was a terrifying enough woman to start with but added to that by openly laughing when he explained that he'd been in an accident in gym class, tartly informing him of exactly which diseases he could pick up from a human bite like that, and proceeding to give him several million injections allegedly to prevent his arm falling off. Jesse was fairly certain that she deliberately used extra large needles meant for elephants.

By the time he got back to the library, more sore than when he started, he was swearing that no matter how badly he got hurt he was not going back into her office. He found Willow on her own in there, combing the Internet for more info on hyenas, and got her to fill him in. What she told him wasn't comforting, such as he understood.

"So these Primal guys actually try to get possessed so that they can go completely nuts?" he asked again.

Willow nodded. "Giles said they go for predators so they can be stronger and nastier."

Which was putting it mildly, Jesse thought, looking again at the illustration Willow had shoved in front of him. The debauchery bit might have been cool, but the half-chewed corpses were something else. That wasn't an attitude he would wish on his worst enemy, particularly if his worst enemy was likely to come after him. A bite like he'd collected from Blayne would be just the start of it. Talking of which...

"Are you sure I can't catch it from a bite?" he asked again.

Willow rolled her eyes. "Giles didn't say so, and I did ask him specifically. Besides, this is a possession thing. It isn't supposed to work like that. There's got to be this big ritual thing..."

She trailed off, eyes slightly unfocused in a way that Jesse knew meant that whatever she was thinking about wasn't something he was going to understand. He let his own thoughts drift back to his general inadequacy, the way Buffy had only added to his humiliation by saving him again. She was out there now, trying to stop the hyena kids from doing permanent damage to anything more important than Herbert. Meanwhile here he sat, not helping her and not helping Willow any either. Well, that was going to change.

"I'm going to find Buffy," he announced, "help her keep the peace."

"What?" Willow blinked, coming back to the real world. "No, Jesse, you can't. They're really strong, they'll hurt you."

"Yeah, well I'll take that risk," he said, standing up. "I'm going."

The door slammed open as Buffy entered the library, dragging an unconscious Blayne behind her.

"Or not," Jesse said.

"Quick," Buffy said, "help me get him locked up before he comes to."

"Oh my God, Buffy, what happened?" Willow pulled out the book cage keys and hurried over, while Jesse kept a look out for unwanted teachers.

"I hit him," Buffy told her.

"There is a God," Jesse said, grinning broadly.

"Yeah, well if he will try to sexually assault me." Buffy practically snarled as she dumped Blayne in the cage. Willow locked the door hastily. "Where's Giles?"

"He got called away to some teachers' meeting. What are we going to do?" Willow asked. "We can't leave him like this."

Much as he hated Blayne right now, Jesse had to admit that Willow was right. If there was some way of turning Blayne back to his normal obnoxious self, they had to find it. It would be just part of the basic unfairness of the Hellmouth that there would be a way to save Blayne when Xander had never had a chance.

"I'm more worried about what the rest of the pack are doing," Buffy said as Giles walked slowly into the library.

"The rest of the pack," he said, "were spotted outside Herbert's cage. They were sent to the Principal's office."

"Good," Willow said firmly. "That'll show them."

Giles removed his glasses and started polishing them, refusing to meet Willow's gaze. Jesse began to get a sick feeling about what had happened. "It didn't show them, did it?"

When Giles still said nothing, Buffy shuddered. "They didn't hurt him, did they?" she asked.

"They..." Giles seemed to grope for the right words. "They ate him."

Willow sat down, aghast. Even Jesse, horror movie maven that he was, closed his eyes. Buffy just looked grimmer. "They ate Principal Flutie?" she said dangerously.

"The official story is that wild dogs got into his office somehow."

"Only in Sunnydale," Jesse muttered.

"Giles, how do we stop this?" Buffy demanded. "How do you unpossess someone?"

"I'm afraid I still don't have all the pieces," Giles said. He frowned for a moment, then picked up a big book from the table and started muttering. Jesse automatically tuned him out when he stopped talking English, which seemed to be about three words in.

Instead, he started thinking about Kyle and his pack. Buffy was right, something had to be done about them before they attacked someone else. It was too late to do anything for Principal Flutie, but if they could round the pack up, maybe lock them in the book cage too, they could keep the rest of the school safe. Safer, anyway.

Jesse was still working out a complicated scheme which involved using some of Nurse Reindorf's elephant needles to keep the hyena-possessed kids sedated when Buffy spoke up.

"I bet that zoo-keeper could tell us," she said. "Maybe he didn't quarantine those hyenas because they were sick."

"Yeah," Jesse said, "he did seem to know a lot of stories about hyenas. He told us that messy one, remember?"

"You mean 'Masai'?" Willow asked.

"That too."

"Really?" Giles said, obviously interested. "We should talk to him."

"Right," Buffy said decisively. She bounced up from the table she'd been leaning against, then stopped abruptly. "Wait, somebody's got to keep an eye on Blayne."

"Oh?" Giles looked over at the unconscious body slumped in his book cage. "At least that's one down, I suppose."

"I'll do it," Willow said.

"On your own, Will? I don't think so. Jesse, you stay here with her."

Jesse glared at Buffy. "How come I have to stay behind?"

"Because I'm the Slayer and Giles does the watchery stuff. Jesse, I had to hit him with a desk to get him off me. I don't want to risk anything happening." Buffy glanced over at Willow, who was already sitting herself back in front of the computer.

It was a dirty trick, Jesse thought, but it was going to work. He couldn't leave Willow alone with someone as smooth as Blayne, he'd talk his way out of the cage before she knew what was going on. Wills was smart, but she didn't know how to handle people like him even when they were still people. Stack all that hyena cunningness they'd been talking about on top of Blayne's normal big mouth and anything could happen.

Well, not anything. It wasn't going to make Jesse like him, that was for sure.

Jesse brooded for a while as Willow typed away, trying to figure out why the Hellmouth had picked on him as its favourite whipping boy. Any time anything happened around Sunnydale it seemed to go out of its way to embarrass him. If he was lucky. If he wasn't lucky, he had to kill his best friend.

A rustling from the book cage brought him back to the real world. Blayne sat up with a groan, and Jesse smiled. Time for some payback.

"What hit me?" Blayne asked. He winced and rubbed the back of his head.

"Buffy," Jesse said pleasantly, sauntering over to stand just out of reach of the cage door. "I think she was a little put out that you didn't bring flowers."

"Huh? Why?"

"The way you were trying to make out with her? Not such a great idea. I know you haven't got much experience with girls, but even I know not to piss her off."

"What are you talking about? And why am I locked up here?"

"Now that would be because you've been acting weird, chasing after girls, eating little piggies, that kind of thing. Plus I figured you'd be familiar with being in a cage by now. Kinda homey, isn't it?" OK, maybe Jesse was enjoying this a bit too much, but what the hell. Blayne had it coming and then some.

"Hey, I... eating little piggies?"

"Raw," Jesse told him, smugly.

Blayne looked like he was about to be very sick. "What's happening to me?"

Jesse abandoned the teasing for a moment. "We think you got possessed by a hyena spirit," he said, face serious. "Something like that anyway."

"I don't feel possessed," Blayne said, wide-eyed. He looked exactly like he had in Miss French's basement, and Jesse couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy. "Oh God, I've gotta get out of here," he said in tones of rising panic. "Man, you've gotta help me!"

"Hey, breathe," Jesse said. He automatically took a half step forward before remembering what he was dealing with and stepping back again.

At that, he was almost too slow. Blayne's arm slipped out between the bars of the cage and grabbed at him, barely missing. "Let me out," he snarled, nothing like the Blayne that Jesse knew and loathed.

"Guess that settles the possession business, then," Jesse said. He smirked and sat down again, pretending to read one of Giles' big thick books. The cursing and rattling of the bars that followed were music to his ears.

It took a while for Blayne to calm down, and Jesse enjoyed every minute of it even while he tried to look bored. He suspected Willow wasn't fooled for a moment, and he was going to get a lecture from his friend eventually, but it was totally worth it to hear Blayne grinding his teeth in frustration. That and Giles' book turned out to have some very interesting illustrations in it, even if it wasn't in English, so Jesse reckoned he really ought to check them out in detail just in case they contained any clues.

"Jesse, Willow," Blayne cooed from the cage. Apparently it was time for more psychological warfare.

"Not listening," Jesse sing-songed back.

"Jesse, Willow."

"Huh. If that's the best you can do... wow, they really bend like that?"

"Jesse!"

That was Willow, and a worried Willow at that. Jesse looked up to see her staring at the library windows.

"Jesse, Willow," he heard again, and this time he couldn't mistake where it was coming from. He could see Kyle and the others at the windows.

"Run," he yelled to Willow, making for the library door himself. Willow was, as usual, way ahead of him and was out of the library a few paces before he got there. The sound of breaking glass behind him spurred him on, lending him a speed that the gym coach would have been surprised to see. He hated to run like this, but he was pretty sure he couldn't take on all four of them.

Willow was trying doors as she went. "Can't out-run them," she mumbled in panic. One of the doors opened and she slipped inside, Jesse following close behind. It was a classroom, though in his panic Jesse didn't stop to figure out which one.

"Barricade," he said, reaching for a desk.

"No time," Willow whispered. "Hide." She folded herself in under the teacher's desk, making room for Jesse beside her.

Time seemed to stretch out. Squashed in beside her, Jesse was hyper-aware of Willow. Every little motion she made, every breath she took, heck he could almost hear her heartbeat thundering away. He squeezed her hand lightly in reassurance, and even in the dark he knew exactly what the frightened smile she gave him looked like.

Any other time he would have been in heaven to be pressed up so close to a girl, but this was his Willow, this was their lives hanging in the balance. This was so not a time for Mr Happy to make an appearance.

Then the classroom door opened, and if time had slowed before it seemed to stop now. Jesse held his breath, hoping and praying that whichever of the pack was in there wouldn't find them. He could hear slow footsteps, then a long pause that ground on his nerves. Finally, finally the steps moved off and he heard the door open and close again.

He felt Willow sag against him, and knew exactly what she'd been thinking. That was too close. He gave her hand another squeeze once he could start breathing again, and got a squeeze in return. She was OK, and that was all that mattered. Slowly, they both climbed out from under the desk.

They saw Blayne standing there at the same moment. "Oh crap," Jesse said, and Willow gave a frightened squeak.

Blayne smiled, that slow, cruel smile that Jesse had come to dread over the past day. "Jessie and Willow sitting in a tree," he sang softly, "K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

Jessie was too busy looking for outs to hear what he was saying, never mind rise to it. At least that was his excuse later, it sounded better in his head than admitting he was too scared. His reaction in any case was pure instinct; he grabbed the nearest thing on the desk, threw it at Blayne and yelled at Willow to run.

Willow ran. Blayne dithered a moment about which one of them to go for, then started to chase her. Jesse used that hesitation to round the desk and trip him, hoping to rush past while Blayne was picking himself up. It didn't work; with unnatural agility Blayne regained his balance, turned and threw a punch that Jesse barely saw coming. Jesse rolled with it as best he could, relaxing automatically as he fell. Apparently Giles did have a point when he spent hours and hours teaching Jesse how to fall properly, and Jesse made a sure-to-be-broken promise not to argue with him about what he got taught.

He scrambled to his feet, but not nearly quickly enough. Blayne was on him before he was upright, grabbing him from behind with one arm across the throat while he contained Jesse's flailing with the other. Jesse struggled, but he might as well have been trying to bend steel bars for all the good it did. At least Willow was getting away, he thought, as he saw her open the door.

"Don't worry," Blayne whispered creepily in his ear, "she won't get far."

The door opened to reveal Heidi standing in the corridor. She growled and advanced slowly, her concentration totally on Willow. Jesse's heart sank, only to rise again moments later as Buffy appeared and hit Heidi with a fire extinguisher.

Even Blayne seemed momentarily rattled by Buffy's appearance. Jesse took advantage of that to drive his elbow hard into Blayne's stomach and wriggle free. Blayne pretty much ignored him, instead diving for Buffy as Jesse gasped for air. She executed a neat throw that left Blayne sprawled on top of Heidi, following it up with a hard kick. Poetry in motion, Jesse thought. He was a little alarmed to see Blayne was still conscious after all that.

"Run!" came Giles' voice from outside, and Jesse was confused to see Buffy, Willow and Giles run back into the classroom. When Buffy slammed the door shut and braced herself against it he got the idea, and dragged a desk over to help wedge it.

The door bulged ominously as the whole pack slammed against it, but it held. After a while the crashing stopped and there was quiet.

Buffy listened carefully. "I think they're going," she said.

"They could be faking it," Willow suggested fearfully, and Jesse agreed.

"No," Buffy said, "they're hungry. They'll be looking for someone weak to pick off. I'm really sorry, guys, I didn't know they'd come for Blayne." She looked nearly as shaken as Jesse felt.

"It's OK, Buff," he tried gamely. "We had it under control."

Buffy gave him a look, but at least he'd broken the mood. Giles looked frankly disapproving, not that Jesse cared much. If Giles had his way, none of them would be allowed to help Buffy out at all, and Jesse wasn't about to let that happen.

"We must get them back to the zoo if we're going to stop this," Giles said after a moment, apparently electing not to argue with Jesse after all.

"Before someone else becomes their next meal," Buffy added. "I guess that's my job."

"I'll come with," Jesse volunteered.

"No," Giles said firmly. "Individually they're almost as strong as Buffy, more than enough to kill you or anyone else going up against them. Together..." he trailed off, letting the enormity of what he had said percolate into Jesse's brain.

"I think they're getting stupider, though," Buffy said thoughtfully. "You guys get to the zoo, I'll lead them to you."

With that she ran off down the corridor and out of the school before Jesse could protest again. "Also," Willow said quietly beside him, "she can run faster than you."

******

"Come on, come on, where are they?"

Jesse was beginning to get impatient as he waited at the entrance to the hyena house. Actually he was beginning to get impatient with waiting, period. Everything that he did these days seemed to involve inordinate amounts of hanging around while Buffy went off and did everything dangerous. He'd spent so long doing nothing today alone that he was well past 'being anxious', had left 'worried for Buffy' behind and was working his way into 'itching for action.'

Next to him, Willow seemed to be working her way from 'anxious' to 'even more anxious'. She was practically hopping from foot to foot, looking really scared. She caught Jesse's glance and gave him a tentative smile, then her attention was attracted by something else. "There," she said.

Looking where she pointed, Jesse could just about make out the figure of Buffy running through the zoo. The pack were following along behind, far too close for Jesse's comfort.

"You go let Giles and the zoo-keeper know they're on," he told Willow. "I'll guide Buffy in."

Willow nodded and ran into the artificial cave. Jesse meanwhile stepped forward and waved. "Buffy, over here!"

Buffy altered course towards him, still running full pelt. Jesse avoided thinking about how well he'd have kept up that pace over a mile or more. While the possessed kids weren't gaining on her, they weren't dropping back either. Jesse had a suspicion that Buffy had a bit more speed in her than she was showing, at least he hoped so, but it was all too close for his peace of mind.

"Everyone's ready inside," he told her as she came up to him and he began to run alongside her. Even fresh, it was an effort to keep up, and he could practically feel the pack breathing down his neck.

"Don't talk," Buffy panted, "run!"

Jesse sprinted. It was only a few tens of yards from the entrance to the viewing room, but it seemed to take forever. Then suddenly they burst into the cave to see the zoo-keeper wearing full face-paint and holding a knife to Willow's throat.

"It's a trap," Willow yelled. Jesse and Buffy both paused, startled by what they saw, and the pack slammed into them from behind.

Jesse managed to roll out from under whoever knocked him down, but Tor leapt on him before he could get up. Franticly, he pushed at the other boy, but the best he could do was to keep Tor's teeth from his throat. "Off! Off! Off!" he shouted. Tor just grinned hungrily and pressed him harder. He heard the zoo-keeper bellow something indistinct, and Tor looked up, his eyes flashing with an unearthly light.

Jesse took advantage of Tor's distraction to get a foot between them and push him off. He rolled to him feet in time to see the zoo-keeper discard his knife and lunge at Willow, teeth bared. Jesse did the only thing he could — he charged him, yelling his head off. He managed to push the man off-balance, but that was about it, and was back-handed across the room for his troubles.

He shook his head, trying to clear the dizziness out. At least he'd had a soft landing, he reflected.

"Oh Jeez," Blayne said in a scared voice from underneath him, "what's going on?"

Jesse ignored him. Finally getting his head together, he saw the zoo-keeper charge at Buffy only to be flipped over her head in a perfectly executed judo throw. Perfect, that is, if Buffy intended him to fall over the rail and into the hyena pit, which judging from her look of horror she didn't. It was kind of poetic justice, though, Jesse thought. A few snarls, growls and screams later, the man who wanted a hyena in him was in the hyenas instead.

Giles staggered in from a side-room and looked around, holding his head. Not that there was much to see, Jesse thought, since the zoo-keeper was history and the formerly possessed pack were slinking out looking really scared. All except for Blayne, who had the bad luck to be tangled up with Jesse.

Oh yeah, he thought. Poetic justice. He looked at Blayne as he got off the boy.

"We really must stop meeting like this," he said with a nasty smile.

******

Blayne still seemed to be in shock the following day. At any rate he was following Buffy, Willow and Jesse around, letting them explain to him exactly what he had been doing for the last day or so, which since he'd normally never let himself be seen dead with them was a pretty sure sign that something was wrong with him.

"I ate a pig?" he asked weakly after Buffy mentioned Herbert's demise. "Raw?" He looked at Willow, who had foiled most of Jesse's attempts to wind him up.

She nodded, still cringing at the thought. "You had help, though, it's not like you ate him up all on your own."

"Oh, that makes it so much better."

"Then there's the Principal," Jesse chipped in. Blayne looked at him oddly.

"No no no," Willow said quickly, shooting another glare at Jesse, "you didn't eat the Principal. That was Kyle and the others."

Blayne stopped dead. "They ate Principal Flutie? OK, that's it, from now on I'm strictly vegetarian."

"That's good," Willow said hopefully. "They're good for you, full of vitamins and... and... stuff." She trailed off as Blayne glared at her, prompting Jesse to sling a comforting arm around her shoulder.

"Just remember," Blayne said, "my dad's a lawyer. Anyone mentions a word of this to anyone—"

"And we'll be facing a lawsuit, yada yada yada. Heard it all before." Buffy looked singularly unimpressed.

Blayne backed off hastily. "Yeah. Right. Try not to see me around, OK?" And with that he headed off, only to be stopped some distance away by a smug looking Giles.

Jesse smirked. Like he wanted to be seen around Blayne anyway.

"C'mon girls, it's lunchtime. I hear they've got sausages."


	3. Never Kill A Boy On The First Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy has a date. Giles has a prophecy. This is not a good combination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, some dialogue taken from the episode.

Jesse looked at the green stuff on his fork dubiously. "I'm thinking vegetable," he said, not sounding all that convinced.

"I'm not thinking about it at all," Buffy said promptly, as she and Willow joined him at the lunch.

"It's good for you," Willow scolded.

"And that would be because...?" Willow looked at Jesse disappointedly. Jesse looked put-upon back at her. Willow's lower lip trembled. Jesse sighed, shoved some of the green stuff into his mouth, and was rewarded with a smile. I have got to stop being such a push-over, he reminded himself for the millionth time.

The presumed vegetable tasted every bit as disgusting as it looked, and Jesse took a quick sip from his juice box to wash it out. "Whatever it is, it could do with some serious slaying. Talking of which, how were last night's nocturnal activities, Buff?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"Jesse!" Buffy hissed. He grinned unrepentantly. "Everything went fine, thank you. Oh, and there's some hoity-toity vampire sect in town that's got Giles worried."

"That's bad," Jesse said unconvincingly.

"It is," Willow agreed, then realised how seriously Jesse wasn't taking the news. "It isn't?"

"Giles gets worried whenever the sun rises. It's his job."

"Apparently me wanting to check a book out is a sign of the apocalypse," Buffy threw in.

They looked at her. "OK, you got me on that one," Jesse admitted. Buffy growled at him, and he held up another fork-full of green stuff to fend her off.

"Oh, look!" Willow said, interrupting their horseplay. "There's Owen Thurman."

"Owen!" Buffy all but squeaked. "He's all alone. Maybe someone should sit with him."

"Just to be polite," Willow agreed. "Good luck," she added as Buffy moved off with a brilliant smile.

Jesse looked over at his oldest friend. "OK, what just happened?"

********

"You just went home?" Jesse asked incredulously. "Let me get this straight: you were late because Giles got paranoid, showed up to find your date playing octopussy with _Cordelia,_ and didn't go straighten him out?" If Owen had been with anyone other than Cordy, Jesse would have been mildly pleased that Buffy's date hadn't worked out. He firmly believed in keeping his options open.

"What was I supposed to do? Tell him I'd spent the evening in the cemetery waiting for a vampire to rise so I could stop an evil prophecy coming to pass?"

"Or maybe tell him you had a flat tyre?"

"I can't take this any more," Buffy moaned. She seemed to be taking the whole date fiasco pretty hard, and Jesse reckoned it was probably for the best to let her vent as they walked through the school corridors. When she started haranguing passing students he revised that opinion.

"Woah, Buff! It's just one date, it could happen to anyone. You're no more of a 'dateless monster' than I am."

Buffy stared at him.

"OK, bad example." Jesse stopped to fish the books for his next class out of his locker. "Though come to think of it we could solve both problems in one go." He grinned in what he hoped she'd think of as an engaging smile. Judging from the way she rolled her eyes, he was at best partially successful.

"OK, points for trying to cheer up the Buffy," she said, "but you're not... Owen!"

Jesse's smile froze. OK, so maybe he didn't have the whole tall, brooding and poetry-reading thing going for him, but did she have to—

"Hey, Buffy!"

Oh, that Owen, the one that was in front of Buffy right now. Jesse opened his mouth to snark anyway, then shut it again. There was no point; Buffy and Owen had eyes only for each other.

Jesse took stock as Buffy and Owen stammered their way through mutual apologies for last night. Owen really was tall, topping Jesse by a couple of inches. It wasn't immediately obvious because Owen spent his time ducked down somewhat, like he was permanently embarrassed and didn't want to be noticed. Fat chance of that, Jesse thought, what with his good looks and reputation for being a really nice guy, and oh God was that a pocket watch he was pulling out and lending to Buffy? Jesse involuntarily looked down at the relentlessly boring and practical watch his mother had insisted on buying him, and shook his head. This was one dating contest he'd lost so thoroughly it was better if he pretended he had just been trying to cheer Buffy up.

Belatedly, he realised that Buffy had said something to him as Owen walked away. "What?"

"Me and Owen," Buffy murmured, gazing off into the middle distance.

Jesse plastered a fake grin onto his face. "You and Owen," he repeated. He might as well not have bothered for all the attention Buffy was paying to him as she wandered dreamily off to class. Then something occurred to him that made his smile a whole lot more genuine. "Not Cordelia and Owen. Suddenly the evening is looking up."

******

"You're expecting me to choose?"

Willow nodded enthusiastically to Jesse, who was sitting on Buffy's bed (which wasn't nearly as exciting a thing to be doing in reality as he'd always imagined) while Buffy seemed to be going through her entire wardrobe. The fact that she was wearing a fluffy bathrobe wasn't helping his concentration any.

"Should I go for 'shy, coy and naive' or 'unrestrained, insatiable and aggressive'?" Buffy demanded.

"Um." Jesse studied the short dresses Willow held out in his direction, and honestly had no idea what made which one which. "Maybe something in between," he temporised. "Something that says you want fun, but you don't want to pressure him?" Whatever that meant.

Buffy and Willow looked at each other. "Mix and match," Buffy decided. Willow nodded. "OK, guy's opinion. Which one do you think Owen will like better, red or peach?" She held up two tubes of lipstick for his approval.

"There's a difference?"

"Thanks," Buffy said drily. "Peach it is."

"Here, put this on," Willow said, handing her another dress. She and Buffy looked meaningfully at Jesse.

"Oh, don't mind me," he said, a stupid grin plastered across his face.

Willow glared at him, then grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him round. Jesse considered turning back since he was slipping off the bed by this point, but reckoned that might be pushing his luck a bit too far. It wasn't smart to try it on too much when the girl he was leering at could break him in two. Besides, he thought as he stood up, there was bound to be a mirror of some sort on top of Buffy's dresser.

Willow and Buffy chatted away brightly as Jesse carefully adjusted the mirror he did find. Sadly he was too late to catch a glimpse of Buffy without the dress on, which kind of summed up his day. A triumph of optimism over reality, or something like that. The girls hadn't even noticed that he'd dressed up this evening in the hope of catching Cordelia when she bounced off Buffy and her beau. Maybe he was doing this all wrong.

His broodings were interrupted by the doorbell. "That's Owen," Buffy squealed and ran for the door. Jesse and Willow exchanged an amused look and followed her.

They were still coming down the stairs when Buffy opened the door. "That's Giles," she said with much less enthusiasm.

"We need to talk."

"Sorry, Buffy's not home right now," Buffy said. She tried to close the door, but Giles forced his way in anyway.

"My calculations may not have been as far off as we assumed," he said, brandishing a newspaper.

Jesse read the headline. "Five die in van accident."

"Out of the ashes of five," Buffy said reluctantly.

"Exactly. Five people have died, and the prophecy tells us the Anointed One shall rise from them."

"From a car crash?" Buffy asked.

"I know it doesn't quite follow, but look! One of those killed was an Andrew Borba, someone the police want in connection with a double murder. He may well be the one. The bodies have been taken to the Sunnydale Funeral Home, we should at the very least—"

"Owen!" Buffy said, abruptly losing interest in anything Giles might have been about to suggest.

"Uh, hi", Owen said, stepping inside in his usual almost embarrassed manner. He seemed a little confused by Giles's presence.

"You have a date?" Giles asked.

"Yes, but I will return those overdue library books in the morning."

"Oh, you're not getting off that easily," Giles almost growled. At least Jesse assumed that was what a stuffy Englishman growling would sound like.

"Man, you really take your work seriously," Owen said, clearly taken aback.

Willow started. "Uh, Owen?" she asked, starting to take him into the Summers's living room.

Jesse grinned. That was his Willow, always thinking. "Yeah," he said, taking Owen's other arm, "a couple of things about tonight."

Once they were out of earshot so Buffy and Giles could continue their argument in private, Jesse turned serious. "This would be the point where I tell you that if you mistreat her in any way, shape or form, I will make you regret the day you first laid eyes on her. If she doesn't beat me to it, and frankly that's way the scarier option. I like to think of her as my little sister..."

"Except for her not actually being his sister," Willow supplied helpfully. Jesse and Owen looked at her. "Though she is littler, I suppose."

"Thanks, Wills. Where was I?"

"You were at the 'little sister' bit," Owen offered.

"Have you had to do this speech yourself?"

"I'm an only child, but it's in all the movies."

"Right." Jesse tried to recapture the thread of his 'big brother' speech, but failed utterly. "Look, the thing to remember about Buffy is that she's an active girl. Don't be too surprised if she runs off to do something, she does it all the time. Always thinking of things she has to do. Don't worry, she'll be back before you know it."

Owen gave him a measured look. "Is that what happened last night?"

"Kind of." Jesse squirmed, not entirely comfortable under Owen's scrutiny.

"It was really important," Willow told Owen with as much honesty as she could muster, "and by the time she caught up with you, Cordelia was, um..."

"Cordelia's kind of insistent," Owen said, making his distaste pretty clear.

Jesse laughed and clapped Owen on the shoulder. "Now there, my friend, I may be able to help you out."

Owen looked him up and down, and grinned. "You might at that. Nice threads, man."

"Thanks." Jesse took a moment to preen. "You're not so shabby yourself."

"Are you sure this is OK?" Owen picked at his clothing anxiously. "I didn't want to over do it, but I don't really know what Buffy likes." He looked presentably casual if not exactly stunning, which Jesse reckoned was just about right.

"It's fine," Jesse reassured him. "Believe me, right now you could be wearing a potato sack and she'd still want to go out with you."

Buffy stuck her head into the living room. "Are we all set?"

Owen's attention was immediately riveted to her. "Everything's cool," he said.

"Yes, well," Giles muttered uncomfortably as they reassembled in the hallway. "You'll face a pretty hefty fine when you get those books back to me," he blustered.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Well, bye. Don't wait up!" She dragged Owen out towards the Bronze with her. Privately, Jesse reckoned they'd both have forgotten everything anyone had said to them within about twenty yards.

"Is something going on?" Willow asked Giles, wrenching Jesse's mind back from entertaining possibilities of comforting a thwarted Cordelia.

"Probably not, no," the librarian said. "I suppose I'll just go to the funeral home in case, and see if anything comes up." He left, not seeing the concerned looks Jesse and Willow watched him with.

"This is bad," Willow said.

"Very bad," Jesse agreed. "I'll go with him."

"We'll go with him," Willow said firmly.

"What? No, Wills, this could be dangerous. You should stay back, in case we need you to get Buffy if it all goes wrong."

"I won't know you need Buffy if I'm not with you," Willow pointed out. "I'm coming too, mister, and that's final."

******

The Bronze was pretty packed when Jesse and Willow ran in, wasting valuable seconds forcing their way through the crowd.

"Buffy!" Willow called.

"Willow? Jesse?"

Jesse gave Owen an unconvincing grin before noticing who else was there. "Angel. What brings Inaction Man out tonight?" He had no time for people who skulked on the sidelines issuing cryptic warnings; if Angel wasn't willing to get his hands dirty, Jesse didn't want to know the man. It didn't help at all that Buffy seemed to like Tall, Dark and Mysterious, putting another nail in the coffin of Jesse's chances of dating her.

"Probably the same thing you're doing here," Angel replied coolly.

"That's really great for both of you," Owen said, "but Cordelia's over there."

Jesse looked round to see Cordelia simmering at all the attention Buffy was getting. Typical. A great chance to win Queen C round had turned up, and he was too busy chasing after vampires to take it. "Why does this happen to me?" he muttered despairingly, then squeaked as Willow unexpectedly grabbed him round the waist.

"No, no, he's with me," she said nervously, trying to look wide-eyed and innocent and failing abysmally.

"You guys are together?" Buffy asked.

"Oh yeah," Jesse said haltingly, putting his arms round Willow and hoping that his mouth was somehow going to get him through the next sentence because his brain had no idea what to say. "You two seemed to be having so much fun that we thought 'Why not?' and look, here we are, all four of us together."

"You're thinking double?" Owen asked incredulously.

"It's, uh, fun?" Willow tried.

"And you're here because of work?" Owen asked Angel.

Jesse managed to turn his snort into a cough. There was no time for snarking at Angel's amazing ability to be somewhere else when a fight was on, he needed to get Buffy on the job before something bad happened to Giles. The last he'd seen, the librarian had been barricading himself into the mortuary hoping to keep the vampires at bay until help arrived.

"You know what would be fun and like not work at all?" he said. "Sunnydale Funeral Home."

"I've always wanted to go there," Willow added. She sounded really fake to Jesse, he only hoped that Buffy would notice too.

"The funeral home?" Sure enough, Buffy got the deer-in-headlights look of someone who really didn't want to have understood them.

"Actually that does sound cool," Owen said. Jesse blinked; just when he thought he understood the guy, he turned all weird on them. "Do you think we could all sneak in?"

"Well, there were some guys there earlier, having fun," Jesse said, putting extra emphasis on the 'fun'.

Buffy winced, then glared at Angel who was having the temerity to look smug at her. She turned to Owen, took a deep breath, and started to talk her way out of her date. Jesse knew how she felt. Well, at least he thought he did, though to be sure he'd actually have to have a date with Cordelia before breaking it off.

As Owen took Buffy aside to argue with her, Jesse turned to Angel. "Coming with us, oh wise one?" he asked mockingly.

"Us?" Angel looked at him sceptically. "She's the only one who should be going. We just make it more dangerous for her."

"You know, for someone who wants all the vampires dead, you really suck at the dusting bit."

"I have good reasons—" Angel began, shrinking in on himself a little.

"Dude, we've all got good reasons. Some of us do what's gotta be done anyway."

Buffy came back to them. "We're gone," she said, and hurried to the exit.

********

Buffy strode into the funeral home, Jesse and Willow hot on her heels. "Which way?" she asked.

"I don't know," Jesse said. "The room was round the back somewhere."

Buffy pursed her lips angrily, but said nothing. Instead she turned right decisively and hurried on. Two corners later they were brought up short by locked gates barring their way. "Damn," Buffy said.

"Wow," came a voice from behind them. "This is cool!"

"Owen!" Buffy said. "You can't be here!"

"Oh and you guys have permission? This is great! Are we going to see a dead body?"

"Not if we're lucky," Willow murmured.

"Stay here," Buffy told him. "Guys, watch out for him." With that she ran off back the way they came. Off to find Giles, Jesse supposed, while they made sure her date didn't become a vamp snack.

"Is she mad at me?" Owen asked.

"No no," Jesse said quickly, "she's not mad. It's just, remember I said she was active? That's just her being all active-like."

"She's just checking to make sure there's no guards so we won't get into trouble," Willow added.

Owen considered that for a moment. "Good thinking," he said.

"Good thinking," Jesse echoed to Willow. Willow blushed.

"What's in here?" Owen asked, trying the nearest door.

Jesse winced. That was a question he so very much did not want answered when there were vampires about. "It's just an office," he said.

"Huh," Owen said, "it's locked. Why do you think they lock all the doors? I mean, who's going to turn up in the middle of the night and steal stuff from a funeral home?"

"You mean apart from us?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Except that we're not stealing anything," Willow said quickly.

"No," Owen agreed, "but it's cool anyway."

Jesse stopped. "Grand Theft Auto would be so much cooler?" he said sarcastically.

A speculative gleam crept into Owen's eyes. "Can you drive?"

"So very, very not want I meant," Jesse told him. If he hadn't needed to keep an eye open for unwelcome visitors he'd have beaten his head against the nearest wall. Owen was insane, it was the only explanation.

"Hey, I'm just kidding you." Or of course there was that. Though evidently Owen wasn't kidding enough to stop trying doors as they wandered down the corridor, and Jesse felt obliged to pretend to try a couple of his own as they went.

"So, Owen, what do you like so much about Emily Dickinson?"

That was the sound of a Willow desperately casting around for conversation, Jesse reckoned. It's not like she was into poetry or anything, except for her and Buffy cooing over how sensitive it made a guy look, and honestly what kind of guy wanted to look something as sissy as 'sensitive'.

Owen did, apparently. He actually stopped to burble on about how she wrote, which seemed to be all death and stuff but not in a good action movie type way. That did at least explain why he thought wandering around the funeral home at night was cool rather than, say, suicidal. On the other hand, Willow seemed to be lapping it up, which disturbed Jesse no end. His Willow and the big doofus was a combination that could only end badly.

Fortunately Buffy chose that moment to reappear. "All clear?" Jesse asked her.

"Yes, everything's OK."

Meaning she'd found Giles and staked the super-vamp. "So we can go home now?"

"Hey," Owen interrupted, "we're not done looking around yet!"

"He's right."

"He's what?"

"We need to find you a nice, safe, fun room to look around in." Buffy gave Jesse a pleading look as she said 'safe', and he got the message. She hadn't staked the vampires, or at least not all of them.

"Oh," he said, inclining his head back down the corridor slightly.

Buffy smiled at him and dragged Owen back the way they'd just come. Jesse and Willow looked at each other and followed.

"Here," Buffy said, stopping at a door marked 'Observation Room.'

"We tried that one," Owen said apologetically, "but it's locked."

There was a crunching noise. "No it's not," Buffy said, pushing the door open.

"It must have been stuck," Willow said brightly.

Jesse just smirked as Buffy dragged Owen into the room. He paused to look at the extremely broken lock as he and Willow followed. Oh yeah, he thought, memo to self: do not annoy the Buffinator.

The Observation Room turned out to be small, full of comfortable furniture and with every available wall covered in heavy velvet drapes. Quite what anyone was supposed to observe in it was a mystery to Jesse.

"I don't think we'll see much in here," Owen said, looking round.

"That's the idea," Buffy muttered quietly. She finished her rapid scout round the room then let Owen go and went back to the door. "I have to go," she said nervously. "To the bathroom, I have to go to the bathroom. If you hear a security guard or something come by, be really quiet. And barricade the door." She slipped out before anyone could say anything.

Owen shook his head. "Are you sure she isn't pissed at me?"

Jesse considered the lock for a moment. "Nah, trust me, you'd know if she was. Wills, would you give me a hand with this?"

Owen watched for a moment as Jesse and Willow shifted one of the big sofas in front of the door. "You're really serious about barricading us in?"

"Oh yeah. This way if anyone tries the door they'll think it is locked," Jesse improvised. There was quiet for a while as Jesse and Willow piled everything movable in front of the door. Owen mooched around the room rather than help them, so Jesse ignored him.

"Oh my," Owen said eventually. He sounded a bit freaked, so Jesse turned his way after propping a standard lamp against the door. Owen had opened the drapes at the far end of the room and was staring wide-eyed through the window behind them. Beyond, in a room tastefully decorated with lilies and yet more drapes, a corpse lay under a simple white sheet.

Jesse began to get a really bad feeling about this.

"I've read a lot about death," Owen said haltingly, "but I've never actually seen a body before." Now he sounded really freaked. "Do they usually move?"

The corpse's hand was indeed twitching. It reached up to pull the sheet aside, and as the body sat up Jesse recognised underneath the distorted game-face of a vampire the features of Andrew Borba, the murderer Giles had shown them.

"Oh crap," he said.

"I have been judged!" the vampire bellowed. That was enough for Jesse; he and Willow turned to hurriedly attack their makeshift barricade. If Borba had been as bad as he'd been made out as a human, he was going to be a horror as a vamp. And as the Anointed One as well... Jesse really didn't want to think about that. This was definitely a job for Buffy.

"What's going on?" Owen asked, backing away from the window.

"Owen!" Jesse snapped. "A hand here?"

Owen didn't seem to hear him. He seemed mesmerised as Borba strode up to the window and almost casually butted it with his head. Glass showered down, and Jesse couldn't help flinching even though he was well out of the way of the debris.

The vampire's face lit up with a truly insane grin as he stepped into the Observation Room. "He is risen in me!" he cried like some demented preacher. "He has filled me with glory and sent me to judge the unworthy!"

Jesse grabbed Owen by the shoulder and shoved him towards the rapidly diminishing barricade. "You help Willow, I'll keep him off your backs," he hissed. That seemed to snap Owen out of his trance, and he set to with a will.

Jesse grabbed up the standard lamp, holding it like an ungainly quarterstaff. Not that Giles had shown him how to use a quarterstaff yet, but he'd watched Buffy practice and how difficult could it be? "OK ugly," he told Borba, "you want to dance?" He stepped forward, swinging the lamp down at Borba's head with all the strength he could muster, hoping to daze the vampire for a few seconds and maybe give him a nasty electrical shock into the bargain.

Borba caught the lamp one-handed as it swung down, wrenched it out of Jesse's grasp and broke it across his knee. "He has found you unworthy," he said. "I will feast on your heart's blood, he says I may!"

"Oh crap," Jesse said again. Behind him he could hear the door opening, but he didn't dare take his attention off the vampire. He'd give it another couple of seconds for Willow and Owen to get out, then he'd high-tail it after them.

Borba moved, throwing one almost lazy punch at Jesse. Jesse tried to bring his arm up to block the way Giles had been teaching him, but he knew he was too slow. He twisted, trying to roll with the punch, but the next moment he was staggering backwards out of the room barely conscious.

Willow and Owen grabbed him before he could fall. "'S'okay Mom," he slurred, "I'm up! I'm up!"

"Run!" Willow squeaked. She and Owen dragged a stumbling Jesse with them as Borba strode out of the Observation Room, yelling more apocalyptic sermons after them.

Buffy met them moments later. "He's back there," Willow told her, pointing the way they'd just come.

Jesse squinted at her. "Hiya, Buff. Is it time for class yet?"

"I think he's got concussion," Owen said anxiously.

"Go!" Buffy told him urgently. "Get him out of here." She ran off, leaving Owen staring worriedly after her.

"She'll be all right," Willow told him. Owen didn't look happy about it, but when Jesse groaned and slumped on him again he didn't have much choice.

Jesse slowly recovered as they made their way to the exit. Echoing through the building he could hear Borba singing old missionary songs, twisting the words into something downright creepy. It would be good to get out of here, he thought.

Willow screamed, and Jesse cursed himself for jinxing their escape. Two more vampires stood in the doorway that lead out into the cemetery, blocking their way and grinning nastily. Jesse pushed Willow behind him unsteadily; he might not be at his best, but there was no way he was going to let some snooty vampire cult take her.

To his surprise, the vampires didn't charge them. Instead they stepped back and pulled the gates of the funeral home closed, laughing quietly all the time at the teenagers now trapped inside.

"What are they doing?" Owen asked.

"They're keeping us as snacks for preacher-man back there," Jesse told him grimly.

Willow was looking nervously back the way they'd come. "I think he's coming," she said.

They hurried on. A short while later they stopped again, some familiar locked gates barring their way. "No!" Jesse said in frustration.

Owen held his head briefly. "Oh God, this is too much!" he said.

"We need to find somewhere to hide." It wasn't a good plan, but it was the best Jesse had. If they could barricade themselves in somewhere that didn't have rampaging vampires on the inside...

"But all the doors are locked," Willow protested.

It all became moot seconds later, when they heard a crash and a cry of "Buffy!" Jesse and Willow recognised Giles's voice, but Owen had no way of knowing that he was a friend.

"Somebody's got to help Buffy!" he said and ran off towards where the shouting had come from. Even terrified out of his wits, he was still charging to the rescue. Jesse had to give him points for that.

He started after Owen but stumbled after just a couple of steps. "Come on Wills, give me a hand here. Buffy'll kill us if we let him get eaten."

With Jesse's legs still refusing to go in a straight line, it took them much too long to get to the action. They stopped in the doorway to the Morgue and gaped at the ballet of destruction going on in front of them. Giles was struggling upright next to the furnace which had somehow got turned on, Owen was lying still at the foot of the big lockers, and Buffy... Buffy was kicking and punching Borba with fury Jesse had never seen before. Unfortunately, the vampire seemed to be perfectly up to taking it.

A gasp from Willow drew Jesse's attention back to Owen, who was starting to come round. "Buffy!" she started to say. "Owen's—"

Jesse put a hand on Willow's shoulder, stopping her. "Now really isn't the time to distract her," he said.

Even as he spoke, Borba launched himself at Buffy again. She side-stepped, using his momentum against him as she threw him onto a gurney and across the room. He barely had time to scream as the gurney tipped him into the furnace and Giles slammed the heavy door on him.

"Toasty," Jesse said approvingly.

Owen groaned, immediately attracting Buffy's attention. "Anyone got an aspirin," he asked. "Or twenty?"

Buffy was at his side faster than Jesse had thought was possible. "Owen, you're... hurt." Also alive, but saying that would probably have been too weird even for their lives, Jesse thought.

Owen shrugged it off anyway, or at least tried. "What happened to that guy?" he asked.

"Oh, we scared him away."

Jesse smiled and hugged Willow gently as Buffy fussed over Owen, spun him a line about Borba running off into the night, and generally tried to resuscitate the date-like nature of her evening. If he'd been in Owen's place, Jesse would have gone along with it for her. Owen, however, seemed to be determined to be different.

"I think I'll just walk home," he said, standing up and taking an unsteady step or two. "Uh, which way's home?"

"I'll get you there," Buffy offered, moving to support him. She actually flinched when he waved her off.

"No," he said, "it's OK. I'll manage."

Willow stepped up, bringing Jesse with her. "We'll get him home safely," she said, "won't we."

"Sure." Jesse smiled, but spoiled the effect by wobbling slightly. At that, he was still more stable than Owen and helped guide the taller boy out. Behind them, their friend and the world's first line of defence against the supernatural looked very small indeed.

********

It was the morning break after the fight before, and Jesse wasn't quite sure what to make of it any more. He'd come across Giles talking to Buffy out in the yard, and Buffy had actually been smiling as she walked away. A fragile, sad little smile, sure, but a smile none the less.

"Hey, Mr G," he said, casually wandering up to the librarian. "What's the what?" He nodded vaguely in Buffy's direction.

Giles frowned at him. "I take it you mean 'what's going on?' Buffy just dumped Owen, I was attempting to cheer her up."

Jesse blinked. "Could you say that again, 'cause for a moment there I thought you said Buffy dumped Owen."

"She did."

"OK, what kind of screwy alternative universe have we fallen into where Buffy throws over the first guy she's nearly managed a date with all year? And for that matter how come he wasn't the one doing the breaking up after last night's little romantic disaster?"

"Apparently he enjoyed getting beaten up so much that he suggested that they just randomly pick a fight with strangers. Exhilarating as a bar-room brawl might have been, Buffy realised that if he stayed around her, sooner or later he would pick a fight with something that would kill him. Rather than have that on her conscience, she broke up with him. I have to admit I agree with her; one overconfident thrill-seeking adrenaline addict is quite enough to cope with."

"Huh. I suppose—" Jesse stopped, realising that Giles was giving him a very pointed stare. He replayed Giles's last comments and glared at him. "What?"

Giles was completely unfazed. "Willow tells me you tried to fight Borba on your own."

Willow talks too much, Jesse thought. "Hey, I'm no adrenaline junkie. We just needed to slow him down, that's all."

"Slow him down? You got in the way of a vampire who was the focus of prophesy, you little idiot. You're lucky to be alive!"

"Woah!" Jesse was a bit taken aback at Giles's vehemence. He was used to the disapproval with which Giles viewed him, but this time the librarian sounded really angry. "Look, I just needed to hold him up for a few seconds so Willow could get the door open."

"And you couldn't do it any other way, of course," Giles said acidly. He took a breath, running his hand through his hair. "What do you think would happen if you or I or Willow went up against any really intelligent vampire?"

"Yeah, yeah, you've told me before. I'd be dead, finito, end of story."

"No, that would not be the end of the story." Giles kept his voice low while they were out in public, but there was no mistaking the intensity of his feelings. "If it was only your life you were risking I'd let you take your own foolish way and be done with you. No, you would die, and then something wearing your face would be able to come up to Buffy and she wouldn't think twice about it. At the very best she'd have to kill you herself, and I think you know how she'd feel about that.

Jesse's eyes narrowed. "Low blow, Mr G. No fair bringing Xander into this."

"When it comes to Buffy's survival, everything is fair game."

The hell of it was that Jesse couldn't disagree with that. Helping Buffy live to slay another night was the whole reason he was throwing himself into the fight in the first place. He wanted to help, needed to help, and here was Giles telling him he couldn't. That wasn't something he could accept easily.

"If you persist in exposing yourself to danger, I will tell your parents."

"Tell them what? That I'm out at night helping to keep the vampire population down? They're never going to believe you and you know it."

"I'm sure I'll find something to tell them that they'll find only too believable."

Giles meant every word of his threat, Jesse reckoned. As the adult Giles was holding all the cards, but that wouldn't last forever. It was time to back off and pick up the battle when he could win it.

"OK, I won't put myself in front of any charging vampires again. But I'm going to carry on with your lessons, because when we do get into a fight I don't want her worrying about me being able to defend myself. Can you live with that?"

"I imagine that's the closest to a promise that I'm going to get out of you," Giles said dryly. "Just remember, I won't tolerate you risking Buffy's life as well as your own."

"Something we can both agree on," Jesse told him. "See you after school then."

He had the nagging feeling that Giles would put him through an extra-hard self-defence class after this argument, but that was OK. He obviously needed to improve anyway.


End file.
